Korean Numbers: Counting, Prices, Dates, and Age

Korean has two number systems, and yes, you need both. Here's when to use each one, and how they fold into prices, dates, and age.

Here’s the part that trips up almost every beginner: Korean doesn’t have one number system. It has two, running in parallel, and which one you use depends entirely on what you’re counting. This isn’t a quirky exception you can memorize away with one rule. Both systems are genuinely load-bearing, and you’ll use each of them constantly, just for different things.

The good news is that the split isn’t random. Once you see the pattern, you stop having to think about it.

The two systems

Sino-Korean numbers come from the same Hanja roots covered in What Is Hanja?. They’re used for money, phone numbers, dates, minutes, and counting above 100 in general.

Native Korean numbers are used for counting objects, people, hours (on a clock), and age.

Number	Sino-Korean	Native Korean
1	일	하나
2	이	둘
3	삼	셋
4	사	넷
5	오	다섯
6	육	여섯
7	칠	일곱
8	팔	여덟
9	구	아홉
10	십	열

Notice: Native Korean numbers only go cleanly up to 99 (스물, 서른, 마흔... for the tens). Past that, Korean switches to Sino-Korean even in native-number contexts. So you'll count 21 apples as 스물한 개, but you won't be counting 150 apples with native numbers at all; that context would use Sino-Korean instead.

Counting objects and people

Native Korean numbers pair with counter words, small nouns that specify what category of thing you’re counting. You don’t just say “three”; you say “three [counter],” the way English says “three sheets of paper” instead of just “three paper.”

개 = general objects: 사과 세 개 = three apples
명 / 분 = people (명 is neutral, 분 is polite): 두 명 = two people, 두 분 = two people (polite)
살 = age (native numbers only): 스무 살 = twenty years old
잔 = cups/glasses: 커피 한 잔 = one cup of coffee
권 = books: 책 두 권 = two books

Notice that 하나, 둘, 셋, and 넷 contract slightly before a counter: 한 개 (not 하나 개), 두 명 (not 둘 명), 세 잔 (not 셋 잔), 네 권 (not 넷 권). This trips people up constantly, so it’s worth drilling on its own.

Prices

Money uses Sino-Korean numbers, always.

오천 원 = 5,000 won
만 이천 원 = 12,000 won
얼마예요? = How much is it?

One structural note: Korean counts in units of 만 (10,000) rather than thousands the way English does. So 120,000 isn’t built as “one hundred twenty thousand”; it’s built as 십이만 (twelve times ten-thousand). Once that click happens, reading price tags gets noticeably faster.

Dates

Dates are also Sino-Korean, read in the order year, month, day, each followed by its own counter.

년 = year: 2026년
월 = month: 9월 (September, literally “month 9”)
일 = day: 8일

So September 8th, 2026 reads as 2026년 9월 8일. Months don’t have separate names the way English does; they’re just the number plus 월, which is one less thing to memorize than it looks like at first.

Telling time

Time is the one place both systems show up in the same sentence, split cleanly by function.

Hours use native Korean numbers, paired with 시: 한 시, 두 시, 세 시
Minutes use Sino-Korean numbers, paired with 분: 십 분, 삼십 분

So 3:30 is 세 시 삼십 분, native for the hour, Sino-Korean for the minutes, in the same breath. You’ll have to memorize which half is which; it’s going to click after you’ve said it out loud a few dozen times. Maybe try repeating the sentence 세 시 삼십 분 fast until you memorize which system goes first?

Age

Age uses native Korean numbers plus 살: 스무 살 (twenty years old), 서른 살 (thirty years old).

There’s an older wrinkle worth knowing about even if it no longer applies day to day: Korea traditionally calculated age differently from most of the world, counting a person as one year old at birth and adding a year every January 1st, rather than on their birthday. As of a 2023 legal standardization, Korea officially uses the international age system (the one most of the world already uses) for virtually all legal and everyday purposes. You may still occasionally hear someone reference their “Korean age” out of habit, especially older speakers, but it’s no longer the standard you need to calculate for.

Try it: 저는 스물다섯 살이에요 means "I'm twenty-five years old." Try building your own age, your own year of birth in 년, and the current month and day, using only what's on this page.

Why this is worth drilling out loud

Numbers are one of the few areas where knowing the rule and being able to produce it live are genuinely different skills, because native speakers rattle off prices and times at full speed with zero warning. Reading this page gets you the system. Actually being fast with it means saying prices, ages, and times out loud, repeatedly, the same way How to Practice Korean Speaking Alone recommends for everything else: narrate your day, including the numbers in it, not just the verbs.

If you want numbers folded naturally into daily speaking scenarios instead of drilled in isolation, 30 Days of Korean Speaking builds them into real situations, one scenario at a time.